The pews were full Friday at All Saints Episcopal Church as a multitude of family and friends gathered to honor Dr. Kenneth Kersh, Arkansas Tech University's 10th president and the only alumnus ever to rise to the school's top office, who died March 23 at the age of 83.

Father Jos Tharakan officiated and spoke briefly about Kersh to those gathered, warning there was more to the man than could be said in a brief service.

"There is a lot more to Kenneth Kersh than what is spoken here. ... He was a man of great intelligence, but I want to say he was a man of greater humility."

Richard Kersh, one of Kersh's five children, spoke about his father's life - including how, after graduating from high school, Kersh turned down a professional baseball contract and joined the U.S. Air Force. After leaving the Air Force, Kersh attended Arkansas Tech, where he played baseball and became the school's first Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) commander while pursuing his bachelor's degree.

Two of Kersh's granddaughters spoke of their "Papa" and the lasting impact he has left on their lives.

After the service, family and friends expressed their condolences to Kersh's family, and spoke fondly of the man amongst each other.

"I met him when I came to Tech in 1989, and he was very eager, very interested ... He was very supportive of the museum effort to get started," Leslie Stewart-Abernathy, whose wife is director of the Arkansas Tech Museum, said. "... She was very grateful for all his support, and I think that was typical of the way he was. He was supporting a whole lot of things. Everybody knew he was supporting the baseball team, but he was actually doing a great deal behind the scenes for a lot of issues within the community. He was a neat man. ... I was very glad to know him and very glad to get his support."

Kersh has left a legacy that has impacted many who he came in contact with during his life.

"I overlapped with Dr. Kersh for 10 years and he was a wonderful man, a real human being," Scott Kirkconnell, a microbiology professor at Arkansas Tech, said. "Everybody that knows him appreciates him. He's a salt-of-the-earth individual."

Kersh was president of Arkansas Tech from 1793-93, during which time the university, in 1976, began to offer its first courses towards a master's degree. He oversaw the 1976 shift that changed the name of the institution from Arkansas Polytechnic University to Arkansas Tech University, and in 1985 reorganized the university into five schools, of Business, Education, Liberal and Fine Arts, Physical and Life Sciences and Systems Science.

In addition to his service in the Air Force, Kersh also served in the U.S. Army, where he was a Green Beret from 1965-69. His educational career spanned 32 years. He was a life-long learner, pursuing graduate studies at the University of Mississippi, Duke University, University of Arkansas and later in life, postgraduate studies at Harvard School of Business.